SAN DIEGO — There are only so many ways human beings can describe an event that occupies fewer than three seconds of their lives, a fact that was put to the test repeatedly after Kyle Schwarber hit a 488-foot home run in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday night at Petco Park.
Schwarber’s sixth-inning solo homer — the longest in the 18-year history of Petco Park — in the Philadelphia Phillies‘ 2-0 win over the San Diego Padres provided a brief but stunning moment of energy on a night that was defined by a distinct lack of activity.
The combined totals: four hits, eight baserunners, 20 strikeouts. It had a couple of moments, but this was not a stirring advertisement for the game.
The Phillies won because two of the hits were solo homers — Bryce Harper‘s in the fourth, then Schwarber’s — and because Phillies starter Zack Wheeler ground the Padres lineup into a fine paste over seven innings of one-hit, 8-strikeout mastery.
Wheeler, who has allowed just three earned runs in 19 1/3 postseason innings this October, came out with a show of dominance in the first inning, putting together a string of 98 and 99 mph fastballs with late movement. Once that was implanted in the minds of the Padres hitters, he was free to use his breaking pitches to induce soft — or no — contact. He threw just 83 pitches and was removed after his velocity ticked down in his final inning, but he allowed just two baserunners, a walk to Juan Soto in the first and a single up the middle by Wil Myers in the fifth.
For the Padres, a 2-0 count constituted a rally.
“Seemed like the curveball was the equalizer for him,” Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins said. “Obviously it’s a good fastball always with him, but he threw a ton of good breaking balls to their guys, and you saw some awkward swings and weird swings.”
But it was Schwarber who captured the imagination, in a way only tape-measure homers seem capable of doing. He sent a Yu Darvish breaking ball into the second deck in right field, far above and beyond the playing surface and into a section of the ballpark nobody could remember being reached — even in batting practice. When the ball hit the bat, it sounded like a tree split in the batter’s box. The ball dissolved into the distance at 119.7 mph and pulled the air out of a raucous crowd. Harper’s stunned reaction in the dugout — eyes wide as basketballs, jaw slack — spoke for everyone.
The only semi-recent postseason comparison came in the 2002 World Series, when Barry Bonds hit a ball 485 feet off Angels reliever Troy Percival.
“It looked like somebody on the driving range,” Hoskins said. “It got so small so fast. One of those that you don’t really need to look at; you can just hear it.”
Darvish, who allowed three hits and struck out seven in seven innings, said of his former Cubs teammate: “Schwarb, he’s a friend of mine. Every time we meet we greet each other and all that, but next time I meet him, I might have to punch him.”
The homer was important, too, and went a long way toward erasing the Padres’ home-field advantage and giving Philadelphia a boost of confidence with co-ace Aaron Nola pitching in Game 2 o n Wednesday. The way Wheeler, Seranthony Dominguez and Jose Alvarado lasered through the Padres lineup, the extra run, in Hoskins’ words, “Felt like a lot more than one run.”
The person who seemed least impressed by the feat was Schwarber himself, who had two of the Phillies’ three hits to hoist his postseason average to .130. He left the batter’s box reasonably quickly and watched the ball’s flight path with only passing interest. He accurately described the homer as “just a point,” and stressed repeatedly that he would have accepted it had it barely cleared the wall.
In the endless search for the insider-y detail, he was asked to recount the reactions of his teammates when he returned to the dugout.
“A lot of people just looked at me weird,” he said, refusing to give the people what they want.
That left it to everyone else, and once the obligatory expressions of shock were relayed — “jaw-dropping,” according to outfielder Brandon Marsh — there wasn’t much else left to say. The moment was more visceral than anecdotal, at least for now. As Phillies outfielder Matt Vierling said, “When it happened, I kept trying to think about how I would describe it. I’ve just never seen anything like that. It’s hard, though, because it happened so quick; 120 miles an hour doesn’t give you much time to think.”
Harper was asked to describe Schwarber’s homer three or four different times in three or four different ways, and he finally said, “Yeah, it was just really far. That’s it — plain and simple. It was just really far.”
The school’s athletic director announced the dismissal Monday, thanking Stoops for his dedication and leadership:
“His tenure transformed the program and reset expectations,” said athletic director Mitch Barnhart in a statement released on social media. “His tenure transformed the program and reset expectations. His time here was filled with memorable victories, a historic run of consecutive bowl appearances, and a commitment to developing young men both on and off the field.”
Stoops just completed his 13th season at Kentucky with a 5-7 record after going 4-8 in 2024. Kentucky lost its final game of the year to rival Louisville41-0 on Saturday.
Stoops, 58, went 72-80 during his time in Lexington (82-80 if including the 10-win 2021 season that was later vacated) and leaves as the winningest coach in school history. Bear Bryant is No. 2.
Stoops brought consistency to Kentucky, making bowl games every season from 2016 to 2023 and twice finishing in the AP top 20.
But Kentucky has had very few bright spots the past two seasons, and the university decided to move on despite Stoops being signed through June 2031 and earning $9 million this year.
Stoops is owed 75% of his remaining salary, which is approximately $37.7 million. That falls within the top five buyouts in college football history, four of which have come this year (the first three were Brian Kelly, $54 million; James Franklin, $49 million, though that was reduced when he took the job at Virginia Tech; and Jonathan Smith, $33 million).
Stoops’ last two years at Kentucky came in the wake of changes to NIL and revenue sharing in college football. Before that era, Stoops delivered some of the best seasons in school history. That included 10-win seasons in 2018, Kentucky’s first since 1977, and the aforementioned 2021 season since vacated.
He developed Kentucky into a program with toughness and player development as its hallmarks. The Wildcats had multiple players drafted every year from 2019 through 2025, including four first-round picks during his tenure.
Kentucky appeared to have found its quarterback for the future this season, as Stoops inserted freshman Cutter Boley as the starter in late September. The move paid dividends, as Kentucky took Texas to overtime and then won three straight games — at Auburn, Florida and Tennessee Tech. Boley threw 15 touchdown passes and completed 65.8% of his throws.
After the loss to Louisville on Saturday, Stoops — who chose to remain at Kentucky when other opportunities surfaced over the years — said he wasn’t going anywhere.
Asked after the game about the possibility of stepping down, Stoops told reporters, “Like, I’m going to walk away? Are you kidding me? … Zero percent chance I walk.”
Barnhart has pledged to “make the necessary investments to recruit an elite head coach” to “build a championship program for the people of Kentucky.”
Pat Fitzgerald has emerged as the target of Michigan State football’s coaching search, sources confirmed to ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Sunday night. The sides are working toward a deal, which is expected to be finalized in the near future.
The anticipated arrival of Fitzgerald comes after Michigan State fired Jonathan Smith on Sunday, two years after he was hired, and one day after the Spartans defeated Maryland to conclude the regular season.
“The 2025 football season has not lived up to our shared standards for Michigan State Football,” athletic director J Batt said in a statement. “While that does not fall solely on Jonathan Smith, it’s become necessary to make a coaching change in order to chart a new direction for the program.”
The 50-year-old Fitzgerald reached a settlement with Northwestern in August, two years after he sued the university amid a team hazing scandal that led to his firing following an investigation. Details of the settlement were not made public.
Former Northwestern football players started filing lawsuits in 2023, alleging sexual abuse and racial discrimination on the team. Similar allegations then spread across several sports.
Fitzgerald denied wrongdoing and sued for $130 million. He alleged the school illegally terminated his employment and damaged his reputation, among other things. His case was set to go to trial this month.
Fitzgerald was an All-America linebacker for the Wildcats and starred on the 1995 team that won the Big Ten and played in the Rose Bowl.
He was 110-101 in 17 seasons as Northwestern’s head coach. He led the Wildcats to Big Ten West championships in 2018 and 2020 and to five bowl victories. Over his final two seasons, though, Northwestern was 4-20.
Michigan State lost eight of its last nine games to finish 4-8 this season. Smith’s overall record at MSU was 9-15 and just 4-14 in the Big Ten. Smith is due more than $30 million, according to terms of his seven-year contract.
Smith, on the sidelines for the Spartans’ 38-28 win over the Terrapins on Saturday night at Ford Field, was 34-35 over six seasons at Oregon State, winning at least eight games in consecutive seasons for the first time in more than a decade at his alma mater. He went 5-7 overall and 3-6 in the Big Ten during his debut season last year. His seat got warm when athletic director Alan Haller, who hired him, left the school last May.
Expectations were low for this season, and the results were worse.
Smith benched quarterback Aidan Chiles, who followed him from Oregon State, against the Golden Gophers and gave redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic a shot to start, perhaps with an eye toward the future the coach no longer has at Michigan State. Milivojevic tossed a career-high four touchdown passes and completed 27 of 39 passes for 292 yards Saturday night.
The program has struggled since the school’s winningest coach, Mark Dantonio, retired and ended a record-breaking 13-year run with consecutive 7-6 seasons and a .500 Big Ten record over two years.
With limited choices in the winter of 2020, inexperienced athletic director Bill Beekman hired Mel Tucker after he went 5-7 in one season at Colorado and had ties to the school as a graduate assistant under Nick Saban.
Tucker led the Spartans to an 11-2 record in 2021 and the school rewarded him with a $95 million, 10-year contract. The school fired him early in the 2023 season after investigating a sexual misconduct complaint against him.
Michigan State does not have a scandal to recover from during its latest attempt to fix its program, but it faces a big challenge to find someone who can win consistently in the expanded and highly competitive Big Ten.
News of Michigan State’s decision to focus on Fitzgerald was first reported by the Detroit Free Press.
James Madison coach Bob Chesney has emerged as the target of UCLA’s coaching search, sources told ESPN.
He’s set to sign a five-year deal with UCLA, according to ESPN sources, that will be finalized after James Madison’s Sun Belt championship game.
Chesney’s James Madison team is 11-1 this season and plays Troy this week in the Sun Belt championship. UCLA has agreed with James Madison that Chesney will coach the Dukes if JMU wins the Sun Belt and ends up in the College Football Playoff field as one of five highest-ranked conference champions.
Chesney informed his team of his intention to leave Monday, sources told ESPN. Chesney jumped to the top of the list of candidates in this frenetic college coaching cycle, drawing interest for a number of the top openings, as JMU is ranked No. 19 in both the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches polls.
Once Chesney’s hiring is finalized, UCLA gets a coach with a consistent track record of winning, as athletic director Martin Jarmond and the UCLA search committee quickly coalesced around his candidacy early in the process.
Chesney, a Pennsylvania native, brings a background as an assistant coach on both defense and special teams. He has also developed a reputation as a turnaround artist, as he has resuscitated struggling programs at Division III Salve Regina, Division II Assumption University and turned FCS Holy Cross into a high-level winner. Along with being 20-5 at JMU, he’s 131-51 overall as a college head coach over 16 seasons. At Holy Cross, he led the school to four of the six FCS playoff appearances in school history, reaching four in a row from 2019 to 2022. He also led the Crusaders to five Patriot League titles.
UCLA’s courtship has been a long one, as it fired coach DeShaun Foster in mid-September after an 0-3 start. He finished his two-season tenure at 5-10.
The UCLA search committed included notable graduates such as longtime NBA executive Bob Myers and Commanders GM Adam Peters.
Jarmond and UCLA top football administrator Erin Adkins flew out and saw Chesney in Virginia nearly three weeks ago, according to sources. UCLA met with four candidates in person and quickly identified Chesney as the best fit. The committee viewed Chesney’s background through small college football and his knack of turning around programs as positives. Since arriving in the Big Ten, UCLA is 8-16 overall, bringing about a wake-up call that more investment is needed.
UCLA pitched to candidates a job with increased financial support, as well as the financial ambition to be competitive in the Big Ten and embrace the academic standards of UCLA. Chesney has worked at strong academic schools, including as an assistant at Johns Hopkins prior to becoming a head coach.
“He had an appreciation for UCLA, the academics and the Big Ten,” said a source familiar with the process. “He also had a detailed plan on how to turn the program around.”
